


Situation Normal

by leiascully



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), The X-Files
Genre: Car Sex, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/M, Sex as Therapy, xfficchallenges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 01:19:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: Mulder and Scully, separated for a week to work on a brutal case with the team from the BAU, reunite for comfort sex.





	Situation Normal

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Season 11, post-reunion, pre-pregnancy  
> A/N: For the "Fic Is Medicine" Challenge at XF Fic Challenges on tumblr.  
> Disclaimer: No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

"Hey." There's a hand on her shoulder. Scully looks up blearily. It's Garcia, the computer specialist who's all blonde curls and the kind of kung-fu that would make the Gunmen either weep or fall in love. "We're headed to the bar. You want to come?" Her voice lilts up sweetly at the end. Her eyes are soft behind her cat-eye glasses. This case has been a nightmare at every turn, but it's been nice to work with women. She misses Monica. Garcia waits patiently for her answer as Scully reels her mind back to the subject at hand: a drink.

"Yeah," Scully says. Her voice catches on the word like she hasn't spoken in a week. She clears her throat. "Yeah," she says again. "That sounds...honestly, that sounds fucking great."

Garcia laughs. "Yeah," she agrees. "It does." She holds out her hand. Scully takes it and lets Garcia pull her up and lead her to the elevator. JJ, Tara, and Alvez are there already, slouched against the walls like they can't hold themselves up. Scully feels the same. 

"Hey, you're coming with us," Alvez says, managing a smile. 

"Wouldn't miss it," Scully tells them. 

"We're glad to have you," Tara says. 

"I'd like to say this isn't something we do all the time," JJ says, her arms crossed, "but our cases usually require a little downtime."

"Whiskey's cheaper than therapy," Alvez jokes. "But, uh, don't worry. We do that too. Usually first."

"Yeah," Scully says, "me too." She tries to smile back at him, but it feels lopsided. "Where are the others?"

"Prentiss and Rossi are with your partner," JJ says, looking at her phone. "They'll meet us there."

"They do all that bigshot stuff," Garcia says. Penelope, that's her name. 

"Rossi will try to buy your drinks," Tara says. "It's kind of his thing."

"Yeah, but he's written like six books," Alvez says. "He's good for it. You should let him buy your drinks."

"It's kind of his routine," Garcia confides. 

"Good old Uncle Dave," Tara says.

"Good to know," Scully says. She stretches. "God, it's been a long week."

"We've really appreciated your help," JJ says. "You and your partner - I don't know if we could have gotten through this one without you both." 

"We were happy to help," Scully says. "It's been nice to work in a team. It's usually just the two of you."

"Ahhh," Garcia says knowingly. "I'm imagining both of you crammed into a cozy little office. Your eyes meet across a stack of reference books. Sparks fly."

"You'll love this," Scully says. "There's only one desk."

"That's perfect," Garcia says. 

"How long have you been together?" Tara asks. 

"Officially or unofficially?" Scully teases. "God, it's been fifteen years, on and off. And another ten years before that that we pretended nothing was going on."

"Delicious," Garcia proclaims. 

"Hey, at least he understands the job," Tara says.

"That's the good news," Scully says. "The bad news is he understands the job too well. It's been difficult to tear him away from the job some years."

JJ laughs. "It's a common problem." 

They pile into a couple of cars. It's not far to the bar. When they walk in, Mulder is there. He looks up from his beer and Scully can see his whole body relax. He grins wearily at something that Rossi's saying. Scully slides in next to him and he puts a warm hand on her knee.

"Hey," he says. God, it's so stupid that after all these years that's still all he has to say and the rest of the world fades into the background.

"Hey, she says back. 

"Sparks," Garcia says. 

"I see 'em," JJ confirms. 

A server comes around and takes their orders. They chat idly until the drinks arrive. Scully takes her vodka soda and squeezes the lime slice into it. Garcia and Tara and JJ and Alvez all have frilly pink drinks with elaborate garnishes. Garcia sticks the little paper umbrella from her drink into one of her hair buns. Alvez carefully lodges his in the other bun. Garcia smiles at him.

"How are you, Dana?" Rossi asks.

"Exhausted," Scully says. 

"I think we all are," Emily says. "Good work, everyone. On the news tonight, they'll say we caught the Terror of the Potomac or whatever godawful name they gave her. They'll make it sound simple. But we know what it took. I know how much time and energy it took and what you all gave up to make this happen. I appreciate it all the more knowing what you could have spent your time on. And we couldn't have done it without our friends from the Hoover Building." She holds up her glass. "To a team effort." 

"To the team," they all echo.

"So what exactly is the X-Files?" Rossi asks, and Scully settles deep into her seat and sips at her drink. Mulder chatters on like a pair of wind-up teeth, and she adds details where it's necessary. She's happy just to lean against him and do her own commentary track. The others seem fascinated. They order more drinks. They talk about Modell, about Tooms, about Pfaster, about the Eves: all the greatest serial-killing hits. Scully talks about Clyde Bruckman and how he helped them catch the man behind the fortune teller murders. Mulder mentions the convict who could walk through walls and the fast food employee who ate people's brains. They manage not to sound completely out of this world, she thinks. She hopes. 

It's gruesome but satisfying to be able to discuss their accomplishments with people who understand. The BAU runs down their own best-of or worst-of, depending on one's perspective. To Scully, they're mostly run-of-the-mill nightmares. The details change, but the horror at the core is the same. She wonders idly how much their collective therapy bills run. Given the lives they've saved, the government owes them. But it's nice, being there with the rest of them. It was a team effort. She and Mulder have always been hemmed in by shadows, but the camaraderie of the team pushes the darkness back a little further. They laugh together and the grimness of it all retreats.

"This was nice," Rossi says. "I gotta tell you all that I gave the bar my credit card when we arrived, so you're free to go home whenever you feel fit to leave." 

They all complain good-naturedly, but JJ's hiding a yawn and Garcia's leaning against Alvez. At least Scully's nerves have stopped jangling at every sound. Dissecting all the old cases helped. Dissecting things always does. But she's still beaten down after a case that took longer than she could really bear and hit harder than she's seen in a long time. The unsub, as the BAU team insisted on calling their suspect, was a woman who drugged her victims, stalked them until they passed out, kidnapped them, drugged them again, and dismembered them, displaying their flayed skin and preserved body parts in shadowboxes from the local craft store. The autopsy results showed that she had slowly drained their blood as they were conscious, slipping the razor under their skin as they bled out paralyzed on her table. She'll be one of the demons who haunts Scully. Scully imagines Mulder and the team feel the same. But she feels better, having spent the time clearing the air. 

Mulder drives home, his hand draped over the wheel. Scully puts her hand on his thigh as they drive, reassuring herself with the warmth of him. 

"It was a hell of a week," he says.

"It was a hell of a week," she agrees. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," he says. "It was like past life regression back to my profiler days." 

"Before you met me," she says. 

"Before I met you," he agrees. 

She thinks of the lithe grace of him in his thirties, how much she wanted to unbutton his shirt and slide her hands inside it. She would imagine it after the worst cases, some kind of solace after the psychic and physical devastation of carving out a safer, more just world. It's a natural instinct, that urge for connection, but the Mulderness of him intensifies the feeling. She can feel the hunger stirring inside her now. If she's honest about it, it began the moment she saw him at the bar; she melted next to him like the ice in her glass. She wants him touching her, inside her, the two of them pressed together until the dark behind her eyelids lights up with fireworks, and she's just relaxed enough from the night of drinking to ask for something she's rarely indulged in.

At a stoplight, she stretches out of her seat and presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. He takes his hand off the wheel and cups her breast. She moans softly against his cheek. His neck is warm under her lips. He dips his head to meet her mouth with his own, his tongue slipping against hers, asking a question she's always been glad to answer. The light changes. He breaks the kiss but keeps his hand on her breast, the other hand going to the wheel. 

"Find somewhere to pull over," she murmurs.

"Really?" The interrogative lift in his voice is ballasted by the rough weight of desire. "We'll be home in an hour."

"I need you to fuck me now," she says. 

"There's a park on the way to 95," he says. "But we should probably make it quick."

"We can do that," she says. She unbuttons her pants with one hand and uses her other hand to guide his fingers into her panties.

"Fuck, Scully," he says reverently. He strokes her slowly as he drives, his fingers sliding up and down her folds. She gasps and hums and arches against his touch, letting him feel and hear every spark and jolt of her pleasure. He drives faster. She has to remind him to take the turn that will get them to the park. They find a dark parking lot.

"Mulder, we're the people we're usually chasing away," she murmurs, unbuckling her seatbelt and clambering into the back seat. She's never had sex in this car before, and only vaguely remembers the person at the car dealership touting that the seats in this one could be reclined to almost horizontal. She fumbles for the mechanism to lean the seat back. It doesn't actually go to horizontal, but it's better than upright. Mulder has followed her. He presses against her ass, unsubtly frotting against her. The urgency between them has never faded; the only thing about her that still feels young, she thinks with a smile. She lies down in the seat and reaches for him, tugging at his shirt to pull him down over her.

They unbutton her shirt with feverish haste. He drags her pants off and kisses his way up her thighs as he pulls down her panties, tossing them over his shoulder onto the dashboard. She reaches up to undo his belt and he makes an impatient noise and pulls her up, taking her place in the seat as they contort around each other. Together they make short work of his belt and zipper and he works his cock out through the fly of his boxers. He's rigid as a pole, the tip of his cock gleaming in the diffuse glow of the streetlight across the parking lot. Without a word, she straddles him, sinking down onto his cock and letting the way he fills her up push every other thought out of her brain. 

They fuck like they're in heat. It's primal. It's noisy. Every time he thrusts up into her, every time she grinds down against him, she feels a little better, a little wilder, a little more free. She leans down and drags one of her breasts out of her bra, straining against the cup. She pushes her nipple deep into his mouth, aching for the friction of his tongue. He has one hand reaching for her clit and the fingers of the other between her teeth as she cries out. He's so solid inside her, his skin like hot silk as she tightens around him. The rough pads of his fingers rub over and around her clit and she gasps, sucking the salt off his skin. His teeth graze her nipple. She's flinging herself down onto him, short sharp thrusts so that she doesn't hit her head against the roof. Skinner already looks askance at them. A sex-related concussion is the last thing she needs. The first thing she needs is Mulder, all of him, deeper and harder and fuck, she's going to come, she's going to shake herself apart, she's going to swallow him whole and beg for more. 

He lets her nipple slip out of his mouth. "Come for me," he commands, and she keens around his fingers and lets go, her arms barely able to hold her up as her body quakes over and around him. He shouts a wordless plea and jolts into her, both hands on her hips now, holding her tight against him as she spreads herself a little wider, trying to take him in even deeper. The rapture on his face would put a saint to shame as he comes inside her, his thighs trembling, and she's never been more in love.

It takes them a moment to come back to themselves. She can feel the liquid heat of their combined desire, the slippery way they slide against each other. When she climbs off him, she has to retrieve her panties to dry herself off before she can put her pants back on. She leaves the underwear off, discarded in the back seat. The windows are fogged. She uses her shirt sleeve to wipe them down. Mulder tucks himself back into his pants but leaves his belt undone. He's still wearing his shoes. She laughs quietly.

"Hmm?" he says, smiling as he turns the car back on.

"All of it," she says, buckling her seatbelt over the still-undone buttons of her blouse. Her hands are trembling too much. She'll put herself back together as they drive. "It seems like a strange way to deal with the stress of a case like this, but I know it's an instinct well within the normal parameters of healthy behavior."

"Feeling better?" he asks.

"I could use another dose," she says. "It's not exactly a non-addictive option, but it does help me sleep."

"I'm sure by the time we get home, I'll be able to administer one," he says. 

"I can always count on you, Mulder," she says. 

He holds her hand across the console. "We're going to have sweet dreams, Scully."


End file.
